"'The contemptible little Army' were opposed by 300,000 Germans. Our brigade got a position that, had the enemy made a dash at us, we should have been overwhelmed. Had they had the pluck they could have come over a ridge and mowed us down, for we were all in a valley, but our General knew we were safe from any attack in the open. All they did was to keep up a terrible artillery fire. Shrapnel shells were bursting over us, but amid all this we took heed of only one word, 'Advance,' and advance we did. Our regiment had a centre position. On we all went. We neared the crest of the hill behind which was our goal. About twenty yards from the crest we lay down and our company commander, Captain Haggard, advanced to the top, saw the Germans and then shouted, 'Fix bayonets, boys, here they are.' What an officer! What a soldier! He himself used a rifle. We 'fixed' and were prepared to follow him anywhere, but we were checked by a storm of maxim fire. We knew by the sound that we were up against a tremendous force. There was only one game to play now—bluff them into the belief that we were as strong as themselves, so we were ordered 'rapid firing,' which gives an enemy the impression that the firing force is strong. We popped away like this for three hours, never moving an inch from our position, and our officers standing up to locate the enemy every now and again. We lost four officers in about twenty minutes. Men were getting hit, bullets coming at us from our front and both flanks. Still we hung on. Just near me was lying our brave captain mortally wounded. As the shells burst over us he would occasionally open his eyes, so full of pain, and call out—but 'twas very weak—'Stick it, Welsh Regiment, stick it, Welsh.' Many of us wounded managed to crawl up and down the firing line 'dishing out' the ammunition we were unable to use. So our lads stuck at it until our artillery got into action. We won. Out in that field were strewn thousands and thousands of German dead and wounded. They even piled them up and made barricades of their dead. Towards dusk, though we were still exposed to terrible shell fire, and to move was almost courting suicide, several of our lads volunteered to collect and carry away the wounded. Many got hit in doing so, but they cared nothing. We were taken to a little farmhouse to wait for the field ambulance wagons. Officers were telling us yarns, were sending everywhere for milk and resolutely refused to be bandaged until we were seen to."
A wounded private of the Royal Munster Fusiliers told the following story of fighting when the regiment had to bear the brunt of the whole German attack, while the rest of the brigade fell back: "They came at us from all points—horse, foot, artillery, and all, and the air was thick with screaming, shouting men waving swords and blazing away at us like blue murder. Our lads stood up to them without the least taste of fear, and when their cavalry came down on us we received them with fixed bayonets in front, the rear ranks firing away as steadily as you please. All round us we saw them collecting until there was hardly a hole fit for a wee mouse to get through, and then it was that the hardest fight of all took place, for we wouldn't surrender, and tried our hardest to cut through the stone wall of the Germans.
"It was hell's own work, but we never hoisted the white flag. One of our men has been recommended for the Distinguished Service Medal. When the man—who was working the machine gun—was killed he came up and took his place. Then the gun was smashed altogether, and his hand blown off with a shell."
The nickname of the regiment is "Dirty Shirts," and because of their heavy losses on this occasion it was said that the Germans had cleaned up the "Dirty Shirts." "Well," said an indignant Fusilier, "it was a moighty expensive washin' for them, anny way."
One of the Irish Dragoon Guards carried a wounded trooper to a farmhouse under fire. A German patrol called at the house and found them. From behind a barrier the Dragoons kept the Germans at bay. The Germans then brought a machine gun up and threatened to destroy the house. Rather than bring suffering on their hosts or the village the two hunted men made a rush out with some mad idea, perhaps, of taking the gun that had been brought against them. They got no further than the threshold of the door, where they fell dead, their blood bespattering the walls of the house.
The 4th Royal Fusiliers were in a warm corner. They were being fired at by outnumbering artillery and infantry, and they were, as one of them said, "like a lot of schoolboys at a treat" when ordered to fix bayonets and charge. "We had about 200 yards to cover before we got near them, and then we let them have it. It put us in mind of tossing hay, only we had human bodies. I was separated from my neighbours and was on my own when I was attacked by three Germans. I had a lively time and was nearly done when a comrade came to my rescue. I had already made sure of two, but the third would have finished me. I already had about three inches of steel in my side when my chum finished him."
The special correspondent of The Daily Mail told the following. One hundred and fifty Highlanders were detailed to hold a bridge over the river Aisne. The Germans opened fire from the woods around, and another body of them greatly outnumbering the Highlanders rushed towards the bridge. For a time they were kept at bay. Then the maxim gun belonging to the little force ceased its fire, for the whole of its crew had been killed, and the gun stood there on its tripod silent, amid a ring of dead bodies. A Highlander ran forward under the bullet storm, seized the maxim, slung tripod and all on to his back, and carried it at a run across the exposed bridge to the far side facing the German attack. The belt of the gun was still charged, and there, absolutely alone, the soldier sat down in full view of the enemy, and opened a hail of bullets upon the advancing column. Under the tempest of fire the column wavered, and then broke. Almost the moment after the Highlander fell dead beside his gun.
In a night attack upon the Worcester Regiment the Germans used the bayonet, which they seldom did, and it was far from a success for them, though there were great masses of them. "We gave them," said a sergeant of the Worcesters, "one terrible volley, but nothing could have stopped the ferocious impetus of their attack. For one terrible moment our ranks bent under the dead weight, but the Germans, too, wavered, and in that moment we gave them the bayonet, and hurled them back in disorder. The Germans have the numbers; we have the men."
At Ypres our Army had to face and hold in check 250,000 Germans for five days. In addition to the ordinary shell and shrapnel there were shells from heavy siege guns brought from Antwerp. These churned up the earth in the trenches and often buried our men who lay there. Over and over again masses of the enemy's infantry advanced within a few hundred yards. Then they halted and poured in a volley. They had no relish for a bayonet charge. Over and over again men leapt from the trenches and went at them with the bayonet. They fled, firing their rifles over their shoulders as they ran. Many hundreds were captured, and thousands were mown down with shell, with rifle, and machine-gun fire. Still their shell and shrapnel rained upon our trenches. Fresh infantry were brought up. The situation became critical; it seemed as if our men would be over-borne by sheer weight of numbers. Still they held on until the fifth day, when relief came and the position was saved.